Christian vs. Non-Christian: Who Gets Into Heaven?

I have a lot of time for John Shore.  If you're unfamiliar with him, he has been called "America’s leading non-douchey Christian" by Dan Savage (of Savage Love and the It Gets Better Project).

As a liberal who grew up in a liberal Christian household, and as a straight, married, father who writes, raises a ruckus about things that matter, and as staunch ally to the LGBTQ community, I identify greatly with John Shore. He's great.

He is one of the great many wonderful Christians who seem to really 'get' what Christianity is, and should be, about. And it is because of folks like John Shore, that I don't appreciate gross generalizations about Christians. And it is because of folks like John Shore that I choose to spend more time trying to find and relate to Christians who care about equality and progress. We can get a whole hell of a lot more done by building bridges with likeminded folks from other belief systems. At the end of the day, we want to accomplish a lot of the same things: decrease suffering, promote equality and compassion, etc.

I feel strange writing about Shore for the first time, and then launching into a video, when he has a wealth of wonderful writing available (in book form, and online), but I recently ran across this and thought it was wonderful. It was posted by John Shore (although I can't be entirely sure that he wrote the dialog, I am sure he endorses it).

The next time you run into a Christian who says that only Christians can get into heaven, you could do worse than to employ the logic of the little dude here on the right:

What Does Science Have To Say About Life After Death?

Physicist and cosmologist Sean M. Carroll sure did step in it. Hot on the heels of Stephen Hawking's assertion that heaven (or any afterlife, for that matter) was "a fairy story for people afraid of the dark," Carroll has published a Scientific American piece entitled Physics and the Immortality of the Soul, that is quite clear on what physics has to say on the topic. And for such a nice guy, he certainly doesn't sugar-coat it.

Now there are many who, like Stephen Jay Gould, assert that there are things on which science and religion do not overlap. Many cite this non-overlapping magisteria when arguing the existence of God, the afterlife, or souls. However, we can't discount the degree of improbability of life after death given the laws of physics.

Carroll explains:

Claims that some form of consciousness persists after our bodies die and decay into their constituent atoms face one huge, insuperable obstacle: the laws of physics underlying everyday life are completely understood, and there's no way within those laws to allow for the information stored in our brains to persist after we die. If you claim that some form of soul persists beyond death, what particles is that soul made of? What forces are holding it together? How does it interact with ordinary matter?

Everything we know about quantum field theory (QFT) says that there aren't any sensible answers to these questions. Of course, everything we know about quantum field theory could be wrong. Also, the Moon could be made of green cheese.

Among advocates for life after death, nobody even tries to sit down and do the hard work of explaining how the basic physics of atoms and electrons would have to be altered in order for this to be true. If we tried, the fundamental absurdity of the task would quickly become evident.

Further on:

Very roughly speaking, when most people think about an immaterial soul that persists after death, they have in mind some sort of blob of spirit energy that takes up residence near our brain, and drives around our body like a soccer mom driving an SUV. The questions are these: what form does that spirit energy take, and how does it interact with our ordinary atoms? Not only is new physics required, but dramatically new physics. Within QFT, there can't be a new collection of "spirit particles" and "spirit forces" that interact with our regular atoms, because we would have detected them in existing experiments. Ockham's razor is not on your side here, since you have to posit a completely new realm of reality obeying very different rules than the ones we know.

Carroll then goes into The Dirac Equation and demonstrates, as simply as a particle physicist can, that it requires an amazing amount of metaphysical shoehorning and the chucking out of everything we know to put any credence in the afterlife concept.

There's no reason to be agnostic about ideas that are dramatically incompatible with everything we know about modern science. Once we get over any reluctance to face reality on this issue, we can get down to the much more interesting questions of how human beings and consciousness really work.

I'm reminded of Carl Sagan's feelings on the afterlife:

I would love to believe that when I die I will live again, that some thinking, feeling, remembering part of me will continue. But much as I want to believe that, and despite the ancient and worldwide cultural traditions that assert an afterlife, I know of nothing to suggest that it is more than wishful thinking. The world is so exquisite with so much love and moral depth, that there is no reason to deceive ourselves with pretty stories for which there's little good evidence. Far better it seems to me, in our vulnerability, is to look death in the eye and to be grateful every day for the brief but magnificent opportunity that life provides.

If we think about where the concept of the afterlife originated, we must look to our ancestors -- ancestors who, if they were lucky, lived only a fraction of the time we will live.   These ancestors had only a fraction of the knowledge we now have at our fingertips -- knowledge of the interconnectedness of all living things, knowledge of the world, and of the cosmos.  Perhaps, as our knowledge and our lifespans continue to increase, we will find (as we are beginning to see in modern European secular societies), that we do not need the promise of an afterlife.  Isn't this life more than enough?

Stephen Hawking: 'There is no heaven; it's a fairy story'

In an exclusive interview with The Guardian, the iconic cosmologist shares his views on life, death, and the afterlife.

"I have lived with the prospect of an early death for the last 49 years. I'm not afraid of death, but I'm in no hurry to die. I have so much I want to do first," he said.

"I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark," he added.

Hawking's comments on death and the concept of heaven are sure to provoke further backlash from those who took issue with comments in his 2010 book, The Grand Design, in which he stated that the universe did not require a creator.

Although Hawking has often been quoted by religious figures for his references to God, it has remained quite clear that Hawking's use of the word 'God' is metaphorical (as was Einstein's).

Hawking has said of his use of the word 'God':

"If you believe in science, like I do, you believe that there are certain laws that are always obeyed. If you like, you can say the laws are the work of God, but that is more a definition of God than a proof of his existence."

"If you like, you can call the laws of science 'God', but it wouldn't be a personal God."

In his brief interview with The Guardian, Hawking had a very simple suggestion for how humans should live their lives:

"We should seek the greatest value of our action."

Read the full interview here.